


Stay With Me

by annieoakley1



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Afterlife, Death, F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 06:34:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annieoakley1/pseuds/annieoakley1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two lost souls meet in the afterlife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay With Me

It was rotten luck she died while wearing a jean jacket. 

It had been hours? days? weeks? since her sudden death and she was still clad in head-to-toe denim. Would this be the outfit she wore for all of eternity? God, she hoped not.

God. God? Where was she? She wandered around this place far above the earth for what had already felt like a lifetime, but she still had more questions than answers.

She knew, almost instinctively, that she could go higher, but she refused to do so. She had seen all the others move up, up, up and then disappear completely, but she didn’t dare.

**

She scratched at her knee, the uncomfortable material rough under her fingers, as she watched her older brother finally leave the hospital. It must not have been too long since her own death, then, but with no one else around and no idea of what to do, time ceased to exist.

He struggled, somber-faced, to get into the backseat of their parents’ car. His own must have been totaled in the wreck.

She held back as they drove away. She could have flown right alongside them with ease, but she couldn’t bear it. Not yet, anyway.

Still, she was so glad it was her and not him.

**

It hurt to watch her two best friends mourning her death, but it hurt even more to watch them fall in love while doing so.

As they stood in front of each other at the church, vowing to love each other until death did they part, she had to turn away.

It’s not as if it was ever something she wanted for herself, but she would have at least liked the chance to change her mind.

**

Maybe he was an angel. He certainly looked like one.

"Hello?"

He walked? floated? flew? toward her even as the others arriving continued to ascend.

He shook his head, confused. ”I’m not ready to go yet,” he said. 

Neither was she.

**

It was easier with someone else. Maybe they’d already lived a thousand life times there, but if they had, it didn’t feel like it.

They visited earth often, seeing things together in death that they had only dreamed of in life. They played in the waterfalls in Ireland. They somersaulted across the sand of the Sierra. They stood at the top of Mt. Everest and marveled at the view, even if it truly paled into comparison to the one they had at home.

Home. Home was now the place in outer space, a vague nothingness suspended above life. They spent much of their time there, watching as others continued on to something they still did not understand.

**

"What’s your favorite color?" he asked her one day.

She pointed down at the trees in her favorite forest. ”Green. What’s yours?”

He stared longingly at the sunset and answered, “Orange.”

**

Sometimes he would paint with the clouds, and she would laugh as she tried to guess what he was making. 

Sometimes she would tie knots with the jungle vines, and he would laugh as he tried to loosen them.

Sometimes they would lay side-by-side and listen to each other’s breaths that were taken out of habit and not necessity.

It was in moments like that where they both agreed they could spend the rest of their lives (deaths?).

**

Everyone they knew from their times on earth were long gone. They had watched, lifetimes ago, as their friends and families rose to the beyond, one-by-one. She had stood silent with wide-eyes the moment her brother, nearly unrecognizable as an old man, ascended. Though she longed to call out for him, to allow him to see her just one more time, she did not dare to do so. Because she knew, they all knew, that there was peace above. 

**

"Do you want to go?" he would ask her.

"Do you?"

They watched as the wars raged on, worse than anything from their time or before.

The clouds darkened, and the seas swallowed the shores. Many of the spots they loved to visit were destroyed as deep fissures moved out from the ocean to the land and swallowed the earth.

And there were so many moving on. So many moving up. It was curious that none chose what she had, what he had, and stayed. 

But they sought the peace.

**

The children, many so small they were not even yet children, danced upward. Others drifted like dust particles in a sunbeam.

Sometimes he would step forward, as if he longed to join them. But she stood rooted in her spot, and he knew he could never leave her.

**

"You can’t stay here forever, you know."

They’d never heard another voice out here but their own. Now a form sauntered toward them. Had it always been here?

"If you don’t go there," it looked upward, "then you’ll have to go back."

"We can go back?" she asked.

The form looked down at what was left of the earth. “Oh, sweetheart. Why would you want to?”

**

"Maybe we can change things!" she said. "Maybe we can make it better."

They watched as another Hunger Games began. Was it the 57th? The 58th? It was hard to remember, and time did not exist here.

"Maybe," he agreed. Though he longed for the peace now, too, he knew he would follow her anywhere.

"But we won’t be us,” she realized sadly. ”We might not find each other. You…you won’t remember that you loved me.”

He took her hand in his and promised that he would never be able to forget that. ”I’ll know to love you. I’ll always know.”

They stared back down at the earth again, their hands entwined, and the cannons boomed as the children arrived.

He knew then that they would go back, and she would change the world and he would follow alongside of her for yet another lifetime.

"I’ll go first," he smiled, and then he was gone.

She took a deep breath she did not need, and then she was gone, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr as cinnamonanddildo. I post previews and other stories there, and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thanks for reading!


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